The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Best (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "RAY KNIGHT'S ARMS were numb..." (more)
Key Phrases: assistant equipment manager, bad guys won, amateur draft, New York, World Series, Red Sox (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drugs, sex and groupies abound in this book by Pearlman, a reporter for Newsday. Only the author isn't a rock critic chronicling the wild escapades of a band; he's describing the very successful 1986 season when the New York Mets won the World Series. As remarkable as the team's performance on the field, the players' escapades outside the stadium are perhaps more memorable, in a far less flattering way. Pearlman, an unabashed Mets fan, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the team, including an insightful portrait of Frank Cashen, the general manager at the time. Pearlman discusses the trades, the players' abilities and unforgettable games. But much of the book is about the difficulties and the unprofessional behavior of many of the players. For example, on one rowdy flight back to New York, United Airlines billed the team an additional $7,500 for damage resulting from food fights and other unruly antics and said the team couldn't fly the airline again. Cashen was upset, but the manager, Davey Johnson, laughed as he tore up the bill in front of the team. The drug use that would become public later was not addressed at the time, though it was obvious to reporters. When asked whether Dwight Gooden was healthy, despite several minor car accidents, Johnson had nothing to say: "As long as Dwight Gooden was smiling and in good physical shape, Johnson required no knowledge about the pitcher's private time. Johnson was a manager, not a babysitter." Pearlman's book isn't simple nostalgia-some of the players have virtually disappeared from the public eye-and much of the wild off-field behavior is still part of the game today. Baseball aficionados, especially Mets fans, will enjoy this affectionate but critical look at this exciting season.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In 1986, the New York Mets won the World Series, taking it from the Boston Red Sox in some of the most memorable baseball ever played. Pearlman doesn't really want to talk about that. He wants to tell you what terribly bad boys these Mets were. There is no boozing, drug use, or bimbo eruption that he does not describe, nor does he miss a single evil quote from one player about another. Doc Gooden's and Darryl Strawberry's silken and glorious talents are not examined nearly so much as their wastrel paths to drug and alcohol use are scrupulously detailed. Rampant sexism and underhanded racism were certainly part of the baseball scene in 1986, but must Pearlman revel in them with such glee? And the prose? Perlman goes purple at the slightest provocation: Bill Buckner's left ankle "throbbed like a transplanted heart." There is a lot not to like here, which is exactly why it will draw media interest and may well become one of the hottest-selling baseball books of the season. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060507322
• ISBN-13: 978-0060507329
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #205,314 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #73 in

  Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Biographies > Baseball

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful book about the rowdy 1986 Mets, June 26, 2004

By	Gary M. Greenbaum (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Pearlman tells the tale of the '86 Mets, how they were put together by brilliant GM Frank Cashen, the turmoil and triumphs of the '86 season, and how this team with so much potential for dynasty status managed to win only one championship.

Pearlman begins with a bang--the near destruction of the interior of an airplane by the newly crowned NL champion Mets, returning from Houston after the classic 16 inning battle which won them the NL crown.

Much of the focus in the early part of the book is on how GM Frank Cashen built the Mets piece by piece, taking them from the no-hopers of the early 80s to the great championship team of '86.

The discussion of the regular season (since the Mets won by some 20 games, not that exciting) is livened up as we meet the individual members of the team.

We see the behind the scene tumult as well. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden display early signs of the flaws that would mar their careers. Manager Davey Johnson seems blissfully unaware of the turmoil which will eventually shatter the Mets, making the Mets of the late 80s one of the greatest teams to win only one championship.

Time slows as we reach September, with the Mets' mini-collapse that prevents them from clinching the division against the distant second-place Phillies, leading to a Tuesday night riot at Shea as Mets fans storm--and nearly destroy--the field after the Mets beat the Cubs for the division title.

Time slows further for the postseason, where the Mets meet their most severe tests, and two opponents--the Astros and Red Sox--each convinced that they can beat the Mets--and each nearly does. We get blow by blow coverage of the great Game 6 in the Astrodome, and the forever famous Game 6 against the Red Sox at Shea which ends with the famous Bill Buckner play. Pearlman questions Bosox Manager McNamara's decision to leave Buckner in the game. (shades of, though probably this book went to press before, the decision to leave Pedro Martinez in the game in Game 7 against the Yankees in 2003).

We see the anticlimactic Game 7 (in which, though Pearlman doesn't catch this, the Mets get a lead at home for the first time in the postseason) and the celebrations--for which Doc Gooden does not appear. The seeds of destruction of the team can be seen even as the city celebrates.

Well written with passion. Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The only word to describe this book is..........eh., September 9, 2005

By	Andrew Stout (Michigan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The 1986 Mets present a fascinating subject for any sports writer especially one as accomplished as Jeff Pearlman, who spent many years as a writer for Sports Illustrated, and is best known for his John Rocker piece. Because of his background I was expecting a hard hitting, no holds barred, expose about a team that should have been a dynasty but was destroyed by questionable management and drug abuse. This team alone carried Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry at the very crossroads of superstardom and tragedy, not to mention recovering, and at the time disgraced, former MVP Keith Hernandez, and constant trouble makers Lenny Dykstra & Kevin Mitchell and a slew of other colorful characters (especially the always forgettable Tim Teufel). However Pearlman fails to deliver with this book. Instead of giving us a historical perspective, an opportunity to look at the teams blemishes along with its successes, he gives us a cliche filled (even more than this review), self serving, glossing over of an entire season, from the point of view of an ex-jock, alomst as if this book had been ghost-written by Ron Darling, much similar to the 10,000 books cranked out over the past 12 months regarding the Red Sox 2004 championship. So if your a baseball fan from outside of New York City skip this one, because you won't find anything in here that you didnt already know and couldnt find on baseball-reference.com. However if your looking for a quick read that you could sit down and finish in a couple of days or are a Mets fan looking to re-live the glory days I would recommend this title.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Between the White Lines, May 30, 2005

By	Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Bad Guys Won! (Paperback)

Jeff Pearlman wasn't much older than me in 1986... deep into his junior high school years and watching the baseball playoffs on TV. While many books have been written about the 1986 Mets, most of those were from participants and first-hand observers. Jerry Izenberg and Dan Shaughnessy wrote quickly-forgotten journalistic accounts the following year, as did ghost-writers for Gary Carter and Lenny Dykstra. Of course, to say that Dykstra's book was quickly forgotten would be unjust... his book is well-remembered, but not for any of the right reasons.

Pearlman's achievement is to insert himself into the story nearly 20 years later and write an extended "Sports Illustrated"-style look at the seamy underbelly of "baseball like it oughtta be". He does this through 187 interviews, but no bibliography. Therefore, if you're keeping track of that kind of thing, it's not easy to determine which player quotes derive from fresh interviews, and which are recycled from old sources. However, his recreations of the infamous Cooter's nightclub arrests, and the trashing of the charter plane flying home from Houston after Game 6 of the NLCS, benefit from an I-was-there sardonic third-person reporting style.

John Rocker now plays baseball on Long Island, for an independent team -- for Bud Harrelson, in point of fact. The intersection is amusing for readers of "The Bad Guys Won!", as Harrelson features in the book, and as Pearlman is the guy who in some respects helped Rocker travel the terrifying downward spiral from World Series to Central Islip. As you might expect from the author who allowed Rocker to marinate in his own oratory, "The Bad Guys Won!" also features more finger-pointing than other books. Shaughnessy's "One Strike Away" tells us that Wally Backman went bowling when Game 7 of the World Series was rained out; Pearlman is more interested in following Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, and in reopening the Kevin Mitchell vs. the kitten tale, and in pointing out that some oblivious Met did some lines of coke on the way back from Houston.

Pearlman is at his best talking about the role players, whom he clearly admires: the two unnecessary Eds, Hearn and Lynch, do well here. On the other hand, George Foster, who was bounced out of baseball before the playoffs began, doesn't merit the author's sympathy; I would have expected Pearlman to defend him, simply because no-one else ever did. The playoff game accounts are authentic. Pearlman has clearly spent a lot of time with the game tapes and ESPN Classic rebroadcasts, as he takes time to describe the flight path of the toilet paper roll spiraling behind Mookie Wilson just before Bob Stanley wild pitched the tying run home.

"Bad Guys" is a short, meaty read, providing a new look at often-told tales about a bunch of players who won it all and then promptly raced into early obscurity. A few days after I finished the book, new allegations about Lenny Dykstra popped up in the media. Clearly Pearlman may have been on to something.